by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER 12. THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS
The author of these few lines really does hope to goodness that no onewill be such an owl as to think from the number of things we did when wewere in the country, that we were wretched, neglected little children,whose grown-up relations sparkled in the bright haunts of pleasure, andwhirled in the giddy what's-its-name of fashion, while we were left toweep forsaken at home. It was nothing of the kind, and I wish you toknow that my father was with us a good deal--and Albert's uncle (who isreally no uncle of ours, but only of Albert next door when we livedin Lewisham) gave up a good many of his valuable hours to us. And thefather of Denny and Daisy came now and then, and other people, quite asmany as we wished to see. And we had some very decent times with them;and enjoyed ourselves very much indeed, thank you. In some ways thegood times you have with grown-ups are better than the ones you have byyourselves. At any rate they are safer. It is almost impossible, then,to do anything fatal without being pulled up short by a grown-up ere yetthe deed is done. And, if you are careful, anything that goes wrong canbe looked on as the grown-up's fault. But these secure pleasures are notso interesting to tell about as the things you do when there is no oneto stop you on the edge of the rash act.
It is curious, too, that many of our most interesting games happenedwhen grown-ups were far away. For instance when we were pilgrims.
It was just after the business of the Benevolent Bar, and it was a wetday. It is not easy to amuse yourself indoors on a wet day as olderpeople seem to think, especially when you are far removed from yourown home, and haven't got all your own books and things. The girls wereplaying Halma--which is a beastly game--Noel was writing poetry, H. O.was singing 'I don't know what to do' to the tune of 'Canaan's happyshore'. It goes like this, and is very tiresome to listen to--
'I don't know what to do--oo--oo--oo! I don't know what to do--oo--oo! It IS a beastly rainy day And I don't know what to do.'
The rest of us were trying to make him shut up. We put a carpet bag overhis head, but he went on inside it; and then we sat on him, but he sangunder us; we held him upside down and made him crawl head first underthe sofa, but when, even there, he kept it up, we saw that nothing shortof violence would induce him to silence, so we let him go. And then hesaid we had hurt him, and we said we were only in fun, and he said ifwe were he wasn't, and ill feeling might have grown up even out of aplayful brotherly act like ours had been, only Alice chucked the Halmaand said--
'Let dogs delight. Come on--let's play something.'
Then Dora said, 'Yes, but look here. Now we're together I do want to saysomething. What about the Wouldbegoods Society?'
Many of us groaned, and one said, 'Hear! hear!' I will not say whichone, but it was not Oswald.
'No, but really,' Dora said, 'I don't want to be preachy--but you knowwe DID say we'd try to be good. And it says in a book I was reading onlyyesterday that NOT being naughty is not enough. You must BE good. Andwe've hardly done anything. The Golden Deed book's almost empty.'
'Couldn't we have a book of leaden deeds?' said Noel, coming out of hispoetry, 'then there'd be plenty for Alice to write about if she wantsto, or brass or zinc or aluminium deeds? We shan't ever fill the bookwith golden ones.'
H. O. had rolled himself in the red tablecloth and said Noel was onlyadvising us to be naughty, and again peace waved in the balance. ButAlice said, 'Oh, H. O., DON'T--he didn't mean that; but really andtruly, I wish wrong things weren't so interesting. You begin to do anoble act, and then it gets so exciting, and before you know where youare you are doing something wrong as hard as you can lick.'
'And enjoying it too' Dick said.
'It's very curious,' Denny said, 'but you don't seem to be able to becertain inside yourself whether what you're doing is right if you happento like doing it, but if you don't like doing it you know quite well. Ionly thought of that just now. I wish Noel would make a poem about it.'
'I am,' Noel said; 'it began about a crocodile but it is finishingitself up quite different from what I meant it to at first. Just wait aminute.'
He wrote very hard while his kind brothers and sisters and his littlefriends waited the minute he had said, and then he read:
'The crocodile is very wise, He lives in the Nile with little eyes, Heeats the hippopotamus too, And if he could he would eat up you.
'The lovely woods and starry skies He looks upon with glad surprise! Hesees the riches of the east, And the tiger and lion, kings of beast.
'So let all be good and beware Of saying shan't and won't and don'tcare; For doing wrong is easier far Than any of the right things I knowabout are.
And I couldn't make it king of beasts because of it not rhyming witheast, so I put the s off beasts on to king. It comes even in the end.'
We all said it was a very nice piece of poetry. Noel gets really ill ifyou don't like what he writes, and then he said, 'If it's trying that'swanted, I don't care how hard we TRY to be good, but we may as welldo it some nice way. Let's be Pilgrim's Progress, like I wanted to atfirst.'
And we were all beginning to say we didn't want to, when suddenly Dorasaid, 'Oh, look here! I know. We'll be the Canterbury Pilgrims. Peopleused to go pilgrimages to make themselves good.'
'With peas in their shoes,' the Dentist said. 'It's in a piece ofpoetry--only the man boiled his peas--which is quite unfair.'
'Oh, yes,' said H. O., 'and cocked hats.'
'Not cocked--cockled'--it was Alice who said this. 'And they had staffsand scrips, and they told each other tales. We might as well.'
Oswald and Dora had been reading about the Canterbury Pilgrims in a bookcalled A Short History of the English People. It is not at all shortreally--three fat volumes--but it has jolly good pictures. It waswritten by a gentleman named Green. So Oswald said--
'All right. I'll be the Knight.'
'I'll be the wife of Bath,' Dora said. 'What will you be, Dicky?'
'Oh, I don't care, I'll be Mr Bath if you like.'
'We don't know much about the people,' Alice said. 'How many werethere?'
'Thirty,' Oswald replied, 'but we needn't be all of them. There's aNun-Priest.'
'Is that a man or a woman?'
Oswald said he could not be sure by the picture, but Alice and Noelcould be it between them. So that was settled. Then we got the book andlooked at the dresses to see if we could make up dresses for the parts.At first we thought we would, because it would be something to do,and it was a very wet day; but they looked difficult, especially theMiller's. Denny wanted to be the Miller, but in the end he was theDoctor, because it was next door to Dentist, which is what we call himfor short. Daisy was to be the Prioress--because she is good, and has'a soft little red mouth', and H. O. WOULD be the Manciple (I don't knowwhat that is), because the picture of him is bigger than most of theothers, and he said Manciple was a nice portmanteau word--half mandarinand half disciple.
'Let's get the easiest parts of the dresses ready first.' Alicesaid--'the pilgrims' staffs and hats and the cockles.'
So Oswald and Dicky braved the fury of the elements and went into thewood beyond the orchard to cut ash-sticks. We got eight jolly good longones. Then we took them home, and the girls bothered till we changed ourclothes, which were indeed sopping with the elements we had faced.
Then we peeled the sticks. They were nice and white at first, but theysoon got dirty when we carried them. It is a curious thing: howeveroften you wash your hands they always seem to come off on anythingwhite. And we nailed paper rosettes to the tops of them. That was thenearest we could get to cockle-shells.
'And we may as well have them there as on our hats,' Alice said. 'Andlet's call each other by our right names to-day, just to get into it.Don't you think so, Knight?'
'Yea, Nun-Priest,' Oswald was replying, but Noel said she was only halfthe Nun-Priest, and again a threat of unpleasantness darkened the air.But Alice said--
'Don't be a piggy-wiggy, Noel, dear; you can have it all, I don't wantit. I'll just be a pla
in pilgrim, or Henry who killed Becket.'
So she was called the Plain Pilgrim, and she did not mind.
We thought of cocked hats, but they are warm to wear, and the big gardenhats that make you look like pictures on the covers of plantation songsdid beautifully. We put cockle-shells on them. Sandals we did try, withpieces of oil-cloth cut the shape of soles and fastened with tape, butthe dust gets into your toes so, and we decided boots were better forsuch a long walk. Some of the pilgrims who were very earnest decidedto tie their boots with white tape crossed outside to pretend sandals.Denny was one of these earnest palmers. As for dresses, there was notime to make them properly, and at first we thought of nightgowns; butwe decided not to, in case people in Canterbury were not used to thatsort of pilgrim nowadays. We made up our minds to go as we were--or aswe might happen to be next day.
You will be ready to believe we hoped next day would be fine. It was.
Fair was the morn when the pilgrims arose and went down to breakfast.Albert's uncle had had brekker early and was hard at work in his study.We heard his quill pen squeaking when we listened at the door. It is notwrong to listen at doors when there is only one person inside, becausenobody would tell itself secrets aloud when it was alone.
We got lunch from the housekeeper, Mrs Pettigrew. She seems almost toLIKE us all to go out and take our lunch with us. Though I should thinkit must be very dull for her all alone. I remember, though, that Eliza,our late general at Lewisham, was just the same. We took the dear dogsof course. Since the Tower of Mystery happened we are not allowed to goanywhere without the escort of these faithful friends of man. We did nottake Martha, because bull-dogs do not like walks. Remember this if youever have one of those valuable animals.
When we were all ready, with our big hats and cockle-shells, and ourstaves and our tape sandals, the pilgrims looked very nice.
'Only we haven't any scrips,' Dora said. 'What is a scrip?'
'I think it's something to read. A roll of parchment or something.'
So we had old newspapers rolled up, and carried them in our hands. Wetook the Globe and the Westminster Gazette because they are pink andgreen. The Dentist wore his white sandshoes, sandalled with black tape,and bare legs. They really looked almost as good as bare feet.
'We OUGHT to have peas in our shoes,' he said. But we did not think so.We knew what a very little stone in your boot will do, let alone peas.
Of course we knew the way to go to Canterbury, because the old Pilgrims'Road runs just above our house. It is a very pretty road, narrow, andoften shady. It is nice for walking, but carts do not like it because itis rough and rutty; so there is grass growing in patches on it.
I have said that it was a fine day, which means that it was not raining,but the sun did not shine all the time.
''Tis well, O Knight,' said Alice, 'that the orb of day shines not inundi--what's-its-name?--splendour.'
'Thou sayest sooth, Plain Pilgrim,' replied Oswald. ''Tis jolly warmeven as it is.'
'I wish I wasn't two people,' Noel said, 'it seems to make me hotter. Ithink I'll be a Reeve or something.'
But we would not let him, and we explained that if he hadn't been sobeastly particular Alice would have been half of him, and he had onlyhimself to thank if being all of a Nun-Priest made him hot.
But it WAS warm certainly, and it was some time since we'd gone so farin boots. Yet when H. O. complained we did our duty as pilgrims andmade him shut up. He did as soon as Alice said that about whining andgrizzling being below the dignity of a Manciple.
It was so warm that the Prioress and the wife of Bath gave up walkingwith their arms round each other in their usual silly way (Albert'suncle calls it Laura Matildaing), and the Doctor and Mr Bath had to taketheir jackets off and carry them.
I am sure if an artist or a photographer, or any person who likedpilgrims, had seen us he would have been very pleased. The papercockle-shells were first-rate, but it was awkward having them on the topof the staffs, because they got in your way when you wanted the staff touse as a walking-stick.
We stepped out like a man all of us, and kept it up as well as we couldin book-talk, and at first all was merry as a dinner-bell; but presentlyOswald, who was the 'very perfect gentle knight', could not helpnoticing that one of us was growing very silent and rather pale, likepeople are when they have eaten something that disagrees with thembefore they are quite sure of the fell truth.
So he said, 'What's up, Dentist, old man?' quite kindly and like aperfect knight, though, of course, he was annoyed with Denny. It issickening when people turn pale in the middle of a game and everythingis spoiled, and you have to go home, and tell the spoiler how sorry youare that he is knocked up, and pretend not to mind about the game beingspoiled.
Denny said, 'Nothing', but Oswald knew better.
Then Alice said, 'Let's rest a bit, Oswald, it IS hot.'
'Sir Oswald, if you please, Plain Pilgrim,' returned her brotherdignifiedly. 'Remember I'm a knight.'
So then we sat down and had lunch, and Denny looked better. We playedadverbs, and twenty questions, and apprenticing your son, for a bit inthe shade, and then Dicky said it was time to set sail if we meant tomake the port of Canterbury that night. Of course, pilgrims reck not ofports, but Dicky never does play the game thoughtfully.
We went on. I believe we should have got to Canterbury all right andquite early, only Denny got paler and paler, and presently Oswald saw,beyond any doubt, that he was beginning to walk lame.
'Shoes hurt you, Dentist?' he said, still with kind strivingcheerfulness.
'Not much--it's all right,' returned the other.
So on we went--but we were all a bit tired now--and the sun was hotterand hotter; the clouds had gone away. We had to begin to sing to keep upour spirits. We sang 'The British Grenadiers' and 'John Brown's Body',which is grand to march to, and a lot of others. We were just startingon 'Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching', when Denny stoppedshort. He stood first on one foot and then on the other, and suddenlyscrewed up his face and put his knuckles in his eyes and sat down ona heap of stones by the roadside. When we pulled his hands down he wasactually crying. The author does not wish to say it is babyish to cry.
'Whatever is up?' we all asked, and Daisy and Dora petted him to get himto say, but he only went on howling, and said it was nothing, only wouldwe go on and leave him, and call for him as we came back.
Oswald thought very likely something had given Denny the stomach-ache,and he did not like to say so before all of us, so he sent the othersaway and told them to walk on a bit.
Then he said, 'Now, Denny, don't be a young ass. What is it? Is itstomach-ache?'
And Denny stopped crying to say 'No!' as loud as he could.
'Well, then,' Oswald said, 'look here, you're spoiling the whole thing.Don't be a jackape, Denny. What is it?'
'You won't tell the others if I tell you?'
'Not if you say not,' Oswald answered in kindly tones.
'Well, it's my shoes.'
'Take them off, man.'
'You won't laugh?'
'NO!' cried Oswald, so impatiently that the others looked back to seewhy he was shouting. He waved them away, and with humble gentlenessbegan to undo the black-tape sandals.
Denny let him, crying hard all the time.
When Oswald had got off the first shoe the mystery was made plain tohim.
'Well! Of all the--' he said in proper indignation.
Denny quailed--though he said he did not--but then he doesn't know whatquailing is, and if Denny did not quail then Oswald does not know whatquailing is either.
For when Oswald took the shoe off he naturally chucked it down andgave it a kick, and a lot of little pinky yellow things rolled out. AndOswald look closer at the interesting sight. And the little things wereSPLIT peas.
'Perhaps you'll tell me,' said the gentle knight, with the politeness ofdespair, 'why on earth you've played the goat like this?'
'Oh, don't be angry,' Denny said; and now his shoes
were off, he curledand uncurled his toes and stopped crying. 'I KNEW pilgrims put peas intheir shoes--and--oh, I wish you wouldn't laugh!'
'I'm not,' said Oswald, still with bitter politeness.
'I didn't want to tell you I was going to, because I wanted to be betterthan all of you, and I thought if you knew I was going to you'd want totoo, and you wouldn't when I said it first. So I just put some peasin my pocket and dropped one or two at a time into my shoes when youweren't looking.'
In his secret heart Oswald said, 'Greedy young ass.' For it IS greedy towant to have more of anything than other people, even goodness.
Outwardly Oswald said nothing.
'You see'--Denny went on--'I do want to be good. And if pilgriming is todo you good, you ought to do it properly. I shouldn't mind being hurtin my feet if it would make me good for ever and ever. And besides, Iwanted to play the game thoroughly. You always say I don't.'
The breast of the kind Oswald was touched by these last words.
'I think you're quite good enough,' he said. 'I'll fetch back theothers--no, they won't laugh.'
And we all went back to Denny, and the girls made a fuss with him. ButOswald and Dicky were grave and stood aloof. They were old enough to seethat being good was all very well, but after all you had to get the boyhome somehow.
When they said this, as agreeably as they could, Denny said--
'It's all right--someone will give me a lift.'
'You think everything in the world can be put right with a lift,' Dickysaid, and he did not speak lovingly.
'So it can,' said Denny, 'when it's your feet. I shall easily get a lifthome.'
'Not here you won't,' said Alice. 'No one goes down this road; but thehigh road's just round the corner, where you see the telegraph wires.'
Dickie and Oswald made a sedan chair and carried Denny to the high road,and we sat down in a ditch to wait. For a long time nothing went bybut a brewer's dray. We hailed it, of course, but the man was so soundasleep that our hails were vain, and none of us thought soon enoughabout springing like a flash to the horses' heads, though we all thoughtof it directly the dray was out of sight.
So we had to keep on sitting there by the dusty road, and more than onepilgrim was heard to say it wished we had never come. Oswald was not oneof those who uttered this useless wish.
At last, just when despair was beginning to eat into the vital parts ofeven Oswald, there was a quick tap-tapping of horses' feet on the road,and a dogcart came in sight with a lady in it all alone.
We hailed her like the desperate shipwrecked mariners in the long-boathail the passing sail.
She pulled up. She was not a very old lady--twenty-five we found outafterwards her age was--and she looked jolly.
'Well,' she said, 'what's the matter?'
'It's this poor little boy,' Dora said, pointing to the Dentist, who hadgone to sleep in the dry ditch, with his mouth open as usual. 'His feethurt him so, and will you give him a lift?'
'But why are you all rigged out like this?' asked the lady, looking atour cockle-shells and sandals and things. We told her.
'And how has he hurt his feet?' she asked. And we told her that.
She looked very kind. 'Poor little chap,' she said. 'Where do you wantto go?'
We told her that too. We had no concealments from this lady.
'Well,' she said, 'I have to go on to--what is its name?'
'Canterbury,' said H. O.
'Well, yes, Canterbury,' she said; 'it's only about half a mile. I'lltake the poor little pilgrim--and, yes, the three girls. You boysmust walk. Then we'll have tea and see the sights, and I'll drive youhome--at least some of you. How will that do?'
We thanked her very much indeed, and said it would do very nicely.
Then we helped Denny into the cart, and the girls got up, and the redwheels of the cart spun away through the dust.
'I wish it had been an omnibus the lady was driving,' said H. O., 'thenwe could all have had a ride.'
'Don't you be so discontented,' Dicky said. And Noel said--
'You ought to be jolly thankful you haven't got to carry Denny all theway home on your back. You'd have had to if you'd been out alone withhim.'
When we got to Canterbury it was much smaller than we expected, andthe cathedral not much bigger than the Church that is next to the MoatHouse. There seemed to be only one big street, but we supposed the restof the city was hidden away somewhere. There was a large inn, witha green before it, and the red-wheeled dogcart was standing in thestableyard and the lady, with Denny and the others, sitting on thebenches in the porch, looking out for us. The inn was called the 'Georgeand Dragon', and it made me think of the days when there were coachesand highwaymen and foot-pads and jolly landlords, and adventures atcountry inns, like you read about.
'We've ordered tea,' said the lady. 'Would you like to wash your hands?'
We saw that she wished us to, so we said yes, we would. The girls andDenny were already much cleaner than when we parted from them.
There was a courtyard to the inn and a wooden staircase outside thehouse. We were taken up this, and washed our hands in a big room witha fourpost wooden bed and dark red hangings--just the sort of hangingsthat would not show the stains of gore in the dear old adventuroustimes.
Then we had tea in a great big room with wooden chairs and tables, verypolished and old.
It was a very nice tea, with lettuces, and cold meat, and three kinds ofjam, as well as cake, and new bread, which we are not allowed at home.
While tea was being had, the lady talked to us. She was very kind.
There are two sorts of people in the world, besides others; one sortunderstand what you're driving at, and the other don't. This lady wasthe one sort.
After everyone had had as much to eat as they could possibly want, thelady said, 'What was it you particularly wanted to see at Canterbury?'
'The cathedral,' Alice said, 'and the place where Thomas A Becket wasmurdered.'
'And the Danejohn,' said Dicky.
Oswald wanted to see the walls, because he likes the Story of St Alphegeand the Danes.
'Well, well,' said the lady, and she put on her hat; it was a reallysensible one--not a blob of fluffy stuff and feathers put on sidewaysand stuck on with long pins, and no shade to your face, but almost asbig as ours, with a big brim and red flowers, and black strings to tieunder your chin to keep it from blowing off.
Then we went out all together to see Canterbury. Dicky and Oswald tookit in turns to carry Denny on their backs. The lady called him 'TheWounded Comrade'.
We went first to the church. Oswald, whose quick brain was easilyaroused to suspicions, was afraid the lady might begin talking in thechurch, but she did not. The church door was open. I remember mothertelling us once it was right and good for churches to be left openall day, so that tired people could go in and be quiet, and say theirprayers, if they wanted to. But it does not seem respectful to talk outloud in church. (See Note A.)
When we got outside the lady said, 'You can imagine how on the chancelsteps began the mad struggle in which Becket, after hurling one of hisassailants, armour and all, to the ground--'
'It would have been much cleverer,' H. O. interrupted, 'to hurl himwithout his armour, and leave that standing up.'
'Go on,' said Alice and Oswald, when they had given H. O. a witheringglance. And the lady did go on. She told us all about Becket, and thenabout St Alphege, who had bones thrown at him till he died, because hewouldn't tax his poor people to please the beastly rotten Danes.
And Denny recited a piece of poetry he knows called 'The Ballad ofCanterbury'.
It begins about Danish warships snake-shaped, and ends about doing asyou'd be done by. It is long, but it has all the beef-bones in it, andall about St Alphege.
Then the lady showed us the Danejohn, and it was like an oast-house.And Canterbury walls that Alphege defied the Danes from looked down ona quite common farmyard. The hospital was like a barn, and other thingswere like other things,
but we went all about and enjoyed it verymuch. The lady was quite amusing, besides sometimes talking like a realcathedral guide I met afterwards. (See Note B.) When at last we said wethought Canterbury was very small considering, the lady said--
'Well, it seemed a pity to come so far and not at least hear somethingabout Canterbury.'
And then at once we knew the worst, and Alice said--
'What a horrid sell!' But Oswald, with immediate courteousness, said--
'I don't care. You did it awfully well.' And he did not say, though heowns he thought of it--
'I knew it all the time,' though it was a great temptation. Becausereally it was more than half true. He had felt from the first that thiswas too small for Canterbury. (See Note C.)
The real name of the place was Hazelbridge, and not Canterbury at all.We went to Canterbury another time. (See Note D.) We were not angrywith the lady for selling us about it being Canterbury, because shehad really kept it up first-rate. And she asked us if we minded, veryhandsomely, and we said we liked it. But now we did not care how soon wegot home. The lady saw this, and said--
'Come, our chariots are ready, and our horses caparisoned.'
That is a first-rate word out of a book. It cheered Oswald up, and heliked her for using it, though he wondered why she said chariots. Whenwe got back to the inn I saw her dogcart was there, and a grocer's carttoo, with B. Munn, grocer, Hazelbridge, on it. She took the girls in hercart, and the boys went with the grocer. His horse was a very good oneto go, only you had to hit it with the wrong end of the whip. But thecart was very bumpety.
The evening dews were falling--at least, I suppose so, but you do notfeel dew in a grocer's cart--when we reached home. We all thanked thelady very much, and said we hoped we should see her again some day. Shesaid she hoped so.
The grocer drove off, and when we had all shaken hands with the ladyand kissed her, according as we were boys or girls, or little boys, shetouched up her horse and drove away.
She turned at the corner to wave to us, and just as we had done waving,and were turning into the house, Albert's uncle came into our midst likea whirling wind. He was in flannels, and his shirt had no stud in at theneck, and his hair was all rumpled up and his hands were inky, and weknew he had left off in the middle of a chapter by the wildness of hiseye.
'Who was that lady?' he said. 'Where did you meet her?'
Mindful, as ever, of what he was told, Oswald began to tell the storyfrom the beginning.
'The other day, protector of the poor,' he began; 'Dora and I werereading about the Canterbury pilgrims...'
Oswald thought Albert's uncle would be pleased to find his instructionsabout beginning at the beginning had borne fruit, but instead heinterrupted.
'Stow it, you young duffer! Where did you meet her?'
Oswald answered briefly, in wounded accents, 'Hazelbridge.'
Then Albert's uncle rushed upstairs three at a time, and as he went hecalled out to Oswald--
'Get out my bike, old man, and blow up the back tyre.'
I am sure Oswald was as quick as anyone could have been, but longere the tyre was thoroughly blowed Albert's uncle appeared, with acollar-stud and tie and blazer, and his hair tidy, and wrenching theunoffending machine from Oswald's surprised fingers.
Albert's uncle finished pumping up the tyre, and then flinging himselfinto the saddle he set off, scorching down the road at a pace notsurpassed by any highwayman, however black and high-mettled his steed.We were left looking at each other. 'He must have recognized her,' Dickysaid.
'Perhaps,' Noel said, 'she is the old nurse who alone knows the darksecret of his highborn birth.'
'Not old enough, by chalks,' Oswald said.
'I shouldn't wonder,' said Alice, 'if she holds the secret of the willthat will make him rolling in long-lost wealth.'
'I wonder if he'll catch her,' Noel said. 'I'm quite certain all hisfuture depends on it. Perhaps she's his long-lost sister, and the estatewas left to them equally, only she couldn't be found, so it couldn't beshared up.'
'Perhaps he's only in love with her,' Dora said, 'parted by cruel Fateat an early age, he has ranged the wide world ever since trying to findher.'
'I hope to goodness he hasn't--anyway, he's not ranged since we knewhim--never further than Hastings,' Oswald said. 'We don't want any ofthat rot.'
'What rot?' Daisy asked. And Oswald said--
'Getting married, and all that sort of rubbish.'
And Daisy and Dora were the only ones that didn't agree with him. EvenAlice owned that being bridesmaids must be fairly good fun. It's nogood. You may treat girls as well as you like, and give them everycomfort and luxury, and play fair just as if they were boys, but thereis something unmanly about the best of girls. They go silly, like milkgoes sour, without any warning.
When Albert's uncle returned he was very hot, with a beaded brow, butpale as the Dentist when the peas were at their worst.
'Did you catch her?' H. O. asked.
Albert's uncle's brow looked black as the cloud that thunder willpresently break from. 'No,'he said.
'Is she your long-lost nurse?' H. O. went on, before we could stop him.
'Long-lost grandmother! I knew the lady long ago in India,' saidAlbert's uncle, as he left the room, slamming the door in a way weshould be forbidden to.
And that was the end of the Canterbury Pilgrimage.
As for the lady, we did not then know whether she was his long-lostgrandmother that he had known in India or not, though we thought sheseemed youngish for the part. We found out afterwards whether she wasor not, but that comes in another part. His manner was not the one thatmakes you go on asking questions. The Canterbury Pilgriming did notexactly make us good, but then, as Dora said, we had not done anythingwrong that day. So we were twenty-four hours to the good.
Note A.--Afterwards we went and saw real Canterbury. It isvery large. A disagreeable man showed us round the cathedral, and jawedall the time quite loud as if it wasn't a church. I remember one thinghe said. It was this:
'This is the Dean's Chapel; it was the Lady Chapel in the wicked dayswhen people used to worship the Virgin Mary.'
And H. O. said, 'I suppose they worship the Dean now?'
Some strange people who were there laughed out loud. I think this isworse in church than not taking your cap off when you come in, as H. O.forgot to do, because the cathedral was so big he didn't think it was achurch.
Note B. (See Note C.)
Note C. (See Note D.)
Note D. (See Note E.)
Note E. (See Note A.)
This ends the Canterbury Pilgrims.
